Children of the Holocaust

Granada Media

About one-third of adult European Jews survived the Nazis' Final Solution, but only seven percent of children. This program tells the stories of four people who, as children, survived the Holocaust: Yehuda Bacon, one of 28 survivors out of a group of 15,000 Czech children sent to Theresienstadt and now an artist living in Israel, who describes the incredible twists of fate that kept him alive; Sophie Reichman, hidden by a non-Jewish family, who describes how she was unable to say good-bye to her mother; Janek Webber, one of only 200 Polish children to survive, who was smuggled out of the Cracow ghetto in his father's suitcase; Shmuel Sheler, whose mother bribed a peasant woman to take the 12-year-old boy back to Budapest after his family was driven out of the city and who survived by scavenging in the streets. Had Anne Frank survived, what might her story have been? (51 minutes)

The Bielski Brothers

On the Bus Productions

The Bielski Brothers commanded the largest Jewish partisan group operating in occupied Europe during World War II. They saved the lives of more Jews than Oscar Schindler and took revenge against hundreds of Nazis and collaborators. Remarkably, their story has never been told before on film. This moving and powerful program tells their unique story and how they built an entire town to house their 1,500 members half-underground in the primordial forests of Byelorussia. The program shows how the twin motivations of survival and revenge drove the Bielski partisans to succeed at all costs. The two surviving Bielski Brothers, who agreed to be interviewed for the first time in this program, explain how their unit was organized, and what life was like for the partisans in their four-year battle to survive and to seek revenge. (53 minutes)

United News, Release 157 (1945): Aircraft Carrier Is Named for President Roosevelt

United News

This World War II-era newsreel includes the following segments: 1. Eleanor Roosevelt, General Marshall, Admiral King, and Bernard Baruch witness the launching of the Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. 2. Admiral Doenitz and Artur von Seyss-Inquart are captured in Germany. 3. B-29s of the 8th Air Force land in the U.S. 4. President Truman presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to an infantryman. 5. Two traitors are tried and shot in Paris. 6. 37th Division troops enter Bagio on Luzo; Marine General Geiger observes U.S. troops entering Naha, Okinawa. (9 minutes)

Pope Pius XII Speaks following the Liberation of Rome ca. 1944

British Pathe

Just seven months after Pope Pius XII assumed the papacy in 1939, war broke out in Europe. Pius attempted to dissuade Italian leader Benito Mussolini from entering World War II, but he was unsuccessful. Throughout the war, Pius maintained the Catholic Church's neutrality, though he often spoke out against the war and the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. After U.S. forces liberated Rome in June 1944, Pius delivered a speech expressing his gratitude that Rome had not been destroyed in the conflict. Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Facing Evil

Doctoroff Media Group

This program offers the intimate testimonies of eloquent men and women as they discuss their dramatic confrontations with the force of evil—and the discovery that exploring evil leads to revelations about goodness. Among those featured in the broadcast are poet Maya Angelou, who speaks of being raped as a child; scholar Raul Hilberg, who discusses the Holocaust; philosopher Philip Hallie, who speaks of his experiences as a soldier in World War II; and Dr. Samuel D. Proctor, minister and educator, who tells of the racial hatred he has experienced. They are joined by dancer, choreographer, and author Chung-Liang Al Huang and former U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan. This program with Bill Moyers offers an unusual series of personal testimonies on the persistent question of the relationship between good and evil. (90 minutes)

Photographer: Lodz Ghetto Through the Lens of Walter Genewein

First Hand Films

In 1987, in a Viennese shop, hundreds of color slides from World War II were found. It turned out they had been made in the Lodz ghetto by a skilled amateur photographer named Walter Genewein, chief accountant on the ghetto council and a proud member of the Nazi party. In this documentary, filmmaker Dariusz Jablonski combines Genewein's disturbing images of ghetto life with the recollections of Dr. Arnold Mostowicz, the last surviving witness of the events portrayed, to create an important testament to the suffering and subsequent extermination of the ghetto's Jews. "In the midst of atrocity, [Genewein] saw only German success," says The Daily Telegraph (London). (80 minutes)

Nazi Atrocities in Kiev, ca. 1941

The WPA Film Library

World War II - Footage of Nazi massacre of Jews and others at Kiev Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Nazi War Crimes, ca. 1941

The WPA Film Library

World War II - Nazi bulldozer pushes a pile of corpses into a pit; war crimes; Holocaust Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Eichmann Indicted in Israel, 1961

British Pathe

Adolf Eichmann indicted by Israeli court for his role in the Holocaust. Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Adolf Eichmann Convicted, 1962

British Pathe

Adolf Eichmann is found guilty by court in Israel for his role in the Holocaust Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Death Camp Treblinka: Survivor Stories

BBC Worldwide Learning

The extermination camp of Treblinka was created by the Nazis to eliminate the huge captive Jewish population in occupied Poland and beyond. In a frenzy of mass murder lasting less than two years, as many as 900,000 Jewish men women and children, including the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto, were murdered in this tiny camp hidden deep in the woods. No one liberated Treblinka—to be a survivor you had to fight your way out. In August 1943, a few hundred slave laborers did so, and today only two witnesses remain: Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman. Revealing their powerful testimonies, this important film sheds powerful new light on Treblinka and documents their remarkable histories after the atrocities as they continued to lead extraordinary lives; Willenberg became a hero of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, while Taigman was a witness in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major architects of the Final Solution. A BBC Production.

Genocide: From Biblical Times Through the Ages

Media Entertainment

Although the term "genocide" was coined by humanitarian Rafael Lemkin in reference to the Turkish expulsion and slaughter of Armenians in the early 20th century, the phenomenon is as old as civilization. In this program, a variety of experts analyze biblical accounts and some of the earliest documented examples of genocide, as in the Athenian siege of Milos in 416 BC, to explore the psychology that motivates such violence. This grim survey of history looks at the extermination of Tasmanians, Native Americans, Namibia’s Herero tribe, and the Armenians. Guests include Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, William Schulz, then executive director of Amnesty International USA;and David Scheffer, then U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes. Viewer discretion is advised. (57 minutes)

Visual History Testimonies

USC SHOAH FOUNDATION INSTITUTE

After filming Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg established the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation with an urgent mission: to videotape and preserve the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. This gripping program—a moving collection of some of the nearly 52,000 that comprise the Shoah Foundation archive—is an outstanding tool for promoting dialogue on the suffering caused by hatred and on approaches to building bridges of understanding and tolerance. (45 minutes)

Deutsch Plus: Part 19

BBC Worldwide Learning

Deutsch Plus is a German language series for intermediate students. Nico and Anna discuss the police search for the drug dealer on the way to her parent’s house. They stop for gas. Anna’s parents welcome Nico and they have lunch. Anna’s mother asks him about his injuries and her father watches a TV program on German historical figures in the Regensburg Walhala Memorial and Russian Jewish immigrants in Straubing. A BBC Production.

The Irish Holocaust

RTE Commercial Enterprises DAC

This program follows in the steps of the reporters from the London Illustrated News who provided posterity with contemporary illustrations and horrifying eyewitness accounts by neutral observers to document the true horror of the famine. (27 minutes)

First Person Singular: Elie Wiesel

PBS

In this video Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel reflects upon his life, work, and concerns for mankind's future. The celebrated author of Night reconstructed his life after surviving Auschwitz to write, teach, and campaign for human rights. As a journalist, prolific author, and human rights activist, Wiesel focuses on how human beings dehumanize others in order to kill with impunity, and reflects on the re-emergence of terrorism after 9/11. Distributed by PBS Distribution. (60 minutes)

Reburial of Holocaust Victims, ca. 1949

British Pathe

Jews killed by Nazis are re-buried ceremonially in Israel Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Refugees from Shanghai, 1949

British Pathe

Chinese refugees leave Shanghai Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Poland Rediscovered—Krakow, Auschwitz, and Warsaw

Rick Steves Europe

Poland is ready to be rediscovered as the old “east” transforms itself into the new heart of Europe. Be on the cutting-edge with European travel expert and best-selling author, Rick Steves. Explore Krakow, with its bubbly Baroque and cobbled charm, is emerging as the exciting “next Prague.” Nearby, a visit to Auschwitz teaches us a timeless, soul-searching lesson. Systematically destroyed during World War II, Warsaw is a lively, thriving capital once again. (30 minutes)

Rolf Hochhuth Discusses His Play “The Deputy” with Hannah Arendt

Creative Arts Television DBA Aviva Films Ltd

On this episode of Camera Three, Rolf Hochhuth and Hannah Arendt examine the controversial themes surrounding Hochhuth's play, The Deputy. Hochhuth provides evidence that Pope Pius XII refused to protest the extermination of the Jews in Germany during the reign of the Third Reich.

Kovno Ghetto: A Buried History

History Education

Kovno Ghetto: A Hidden History tells the true story of the German-occupied city in Lithuania, starting in 1941 through the Soviet invasion, as the Jewish population was forced to live in squalid and brutal conditions. Razed to the ground in 1944, with its citizens dispersed to concentration camps as forced labor—or worse—a few buried remnants of Jewish defiance survived as artifacts, letters, and photos, bearing witness to the atrocity. Distributed by A&E Television Networks. (95 minutes)

Standing Tall at Auschwitz

History Education

During the latter years of the Third Reich, when Jews were being exterminated and physical perfection was still idolized, the Ovitz family was doubly marked for death. This A&E Special tells the survival story of the seven Ovitz siblings, a family of dwarves that had traveled Central Europe in the 1930s and early ’40s enchanting crowds with their musical performances. Eventually incarcerated at Auschwitz, they were the subject of numerous eugenics experiments by Josef Mengele, whose protection of them—for his own inhuman uses—actually helped enable them to outlast the war. Recollections of fellow captives at Auschwitz and an interview with the youngest Ovitz, filmed shortly before her death in 2001, help tell the tale. Distributed by A&E Television Networks. (45 minutes)

Adolf Hitler: Man and Myth (Remembering World War II)

History Education

Decades after the end of World War II, the name Adolf Hitler continues to produce intense feelings of hatred—and loyalty. Tracing Hitler’s life from his formative years in Vienna and his service in World War I, to a political career that nearly made him the master of the world, to his suicide in a Berlin bunker, this program seeks to understand the dark fascination with and enduring loathing toward one of history’s towering villains. Distributed by A&E Television Networks. (45 minutes)

Learning to Hate

Doctoroff Media Group

In the second program, Moyers focuses on how children learn to hate, and how attitudes toward hatred differ from culture to culture. A youth of Arab-Israeli descent becomes friends with a young Orthodox Jew at an international training center that teaches youngsters the tools for dialogue and understanding. High school students in Bensonhurst analyze the origins of hatred against gays. In Washington, D.C., a Holocaust survivor teaches children how stereotyping breeds hatred, and how that hatred can lead to persecution. Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, Vaclav Havel, Li Lu, and Northern Ireland peace activist Mairead Corrigan Maguire share their own experiences with hatred and discuss the resolve that helped them deal with it. Contains inflammatory language. (39 minutes)

Our People, Our Traditions (Finding Your Roots, Season 2)

PBS

These three celebrated Americans share not only a Jewish heritage but also a history of perseverance in the face of withering opposition. Tony Kushner delves into the history of the Holocaust to discover his ancestors’ fate; Carole King discovers the origins of her family name and confronts the reality of the discrimination her ancestors faced once they arrived in America; and Alan Dershowitz discovers that the first Hassidic synagogue in Brooklyn, started by his great grandfather, played a secret role in World War II. Now woven into the fabric of the American experience the immigrant stories of our guests’ ancestors provide an extraordinary testimony to this country’s triumph over adversity.

The Rescuers

108 Media Corporation

This film traces the journey of Stephanie Nyombayire, a young Rwandan anti-genocide activist who teams up with Sir Martin Gilbert, the renowned Holocaust historian, to travel across 15 countries and three continents interviewing survivors and descendants of the diplomats who rescued tens of thousands of Jews from the unspeakable horrors of the Nazi death camps. While Nyombayire embarks upon this quest in an effort to uncover potential solutions for the ongoing genocide in Darfur and elsewhere, what emerges from their journey is a testament to the ways in which the inherent good in the human spirit can trump institutional evil.

Touched by Auschwitz: Episode 2

BBC Worldwide Learning

The extraordinary story of six Auschwitz survivors—telling of their survival in the years after they left the camp, and travelling right up to the present day. Producer and director Laurence Rees has travelled extensively in order to film six survivors of Auschwitz, along with their friends and families. Together these sequences, filmed in Jerusalem and Chicago, London and Bavaria, Krakow and Tel Aviv, build into a compelling portrait of the problems, challenges and triumphs that six different individuals have experienced since the war as a result of their time in Auschwitz. These interviews attempt to answer one of the most profound questions of the Holocaust—what is the human legacy of the crime? This is unique television. No one who watches it, and hears this testimony, will ever look at the world in quite the same way again

Primo

Heritage Theatre LTD

A work of astounding dramatic power, this film brings to life Primo Levi’s great testament to his year in Auschwitz. Antony Sher’s towering performance is as controlled as Primo Levi’s own lucid prose. Directed by Richard Wilson with set design by Hildegard Bechtler.

Final Days of Anne Frank

National Geographic

Final Days of Anne Frank is the story of Anne Frank and the seven people arrested with her during the Holocaust. This is a hard-edged and compelling take on the well-known story of the German Jewish schoolgirl whose diary about hiding from Nazis in a secret annex for two years during World War II, became one of the world’s most widely read books. Historical footage and details about the Nazi death industry, the individuals who commanded it and suffered, and commentary and historical insights from respected writers, professors, and scholars brings the tragic story of Anne Frank to a larger context of history, philosophy, ethics, moral behavior, and the legacy of her life.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland: Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp

Global Screen GmbH

The fortified walls, the barbed wire, the platforms, the barracks, the gallows, the gas chambers and the cremation ovens all bear witness to the conditions within which the Hitlerian genocide took place in the former concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most extensive of the Third Reich. Four million people, among them a great number of Jews, were systematically starved, tortured and murdered in this camp, symbol of the cruelty of man to his fellow men in the 20th century.

Elie Wiesel: Dead Stars, Dead Eyes

Deutsche Grammophon GmbH

In this powerful program narrated by William Hurt, Elie Wiesel shares his innermost beliefs as he talks about his commitment to Holocaust awareness, his ongoing fight against anti-Semitism, and his tireless efforts to help the weak. From his birthplace in the town of Sighet and back again via Auschwitz, postwar Paris, Jerusalem, and New York City, the iconic humanitarian talks about the things that matter most to him: family, Judaism, human rights, and, most of all, the duty to remember. Footage of Wiesel at Boston University captures the Nobel Laureate in a teaching moment, while passages from his acclaimed memoir Night, read by Hurt, articulate the surreal horror of living in a death camp. (58 minutes)

Adolf Hitler Calls for the Elimination of the Jews ca. 1930s

British Pathe

After the Nazi Party took control of the German government in 1933, chancellor Adolf Hitler enacted the Nuremberg Racial Laws, depriving Jews of citizenship, and vowed to purge the country of all "undesirables". In 1939 Hitler instituted the "Final Solution" - the systematic killing of all European Jews. By the end of World War II in 1945, between 6 and 8 million Jews had been murdered during the Nazi Holocaust. Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Jewish Refugees Flee Germany aboard the SS St. Louis ca. 1939

British Pathe

In May 1939 the S.S. St. Louis left the port of Hamburg bound for Cuba, carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Although the refugees had visas, the Cuban government turned them away. The St. Louis then tried to dock in Miami, but U.S. immigration officials also denied entry to the refugees. Finally, the ship turned back toward Europe, landing at Antwerp, where 200 passengers were granted entry into Belgium. The remaining passengers disembarked at Amsterdam, where many of them were captured when Hitler invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. Copyright The WPA Film Library.

From Bitter Earth: Artists of the Holocaust

BBC Worldwide Learning

Throughout the Holocaust, Jewish artists created work that vividly documented the horror of Hitler's reign, from the despair of the Polish ghettos to the unprecedented misery of the death camps. In this program, artists who survived the camps discuss the risks they took in order to obtain simple materials-scraps of paper, pencils, and other basic supplies. They describe the inventive ways they found for hiding finished pieces from their Nazi captors. In an ironic twist, some tell how they were recruited to create Nazi propaganda art. This program pays tribute to these artists, to the politics of their art, and to the tenacity of their creative spirit. A BBC Production. (50 minutes)

Israel: The First Forty Years

Reuters Television

Showing Palestine under the British Protectorate and the arrival of Holocaust survivors in 1946, this program properly begins with David Ben-Gurion's proclamation of the state of Israel, and proceeds through the tumultuous first 40 years of the oldest surviving nation and the newest democracy in the Middle East. Included in the program are the '67 and '73 wars, the invasion of Lebanon and the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear plant, the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Yad Vashem, life on a kibbutz, the liberation of the Wailing Wall, the Camp David agreement, the move of Israeli settlers into West Bank territories, the arrival of Falashas from Ethiopia and Anatoly Shcharansky from the Soviet Union, and much more. (49 minutes)

Genocide in the First Half of the 20th Century

Media Entertainment

State-sanctioned violence has always existed, but technological advances have facilitated its use as a viable means of exerting political power. This program continues the examination of the history of genocide, focusing on the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, the 1923 Rosewood Massacre, Stalin’s forced Ukrainian famine, the Japanese Rape of Nanking, and the Holocaust. A host of survivors, experts, and scholars include Martha Barnett, president of the American Bar Association; Eddie Faye Gates; Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking; Yehuda Bauer, director of the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research; and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. Viewer discretion is advised. (57 minutes)

The Suicide of a Camp Survivor: The Case of Primo Levi

Nederlandse Omroep Stichting

This is the story of an assimilated Italian Jew, a chemist of no particular renown whose efforts to survive in fascist Italy were finally thwarted when he was deported to Auschwitz, where he survived through no effort of his own while tens of thousands around him were slaughtered-people possibly nobler, more valuable than he. He emerged from the experience a superb writer and a scarred man, who in his works sought to remember, bear witness to, and above all understand the human qualities that emerge on the sharp edge of despair. He survived the camp, burning with the need to tell how it was; and when he had done so and said it all, he gave in to depression and ended his life. (72 minutes)

Facing Hate

Doctoroff Media Group

"Hate is not only destructive, it is self-destructive."—Elie Wiesel In this moving personal testament, Nobel Laureate and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel talks with Bill Moyers about his own childhood experiences at Auschwitz and analyzes the source of Nazi hatred toward Jews—"we weren’t human in their eyes." Wiesel reflects on his own apparent inability to hate, and discusses ethnic hatred at work in Bosnia and other Eastern European countries since the end of the Cold War. (58 minutes)

Nazi Atrocities in Ukraine, ca. 1941

The WPA Film Library

World War II - Nazi massacre in the Ukraine; Holocaust Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Witness to Auschwitz

BBC Worldwide Learning

With so few survivors of the Holocaust left to share their first-hand testimony, what is the right approach to those with accounts that cannot be proved? Ninety-three-year-old Denis Avey is a British hero of the Holocaust who helped save the life of an Auschwitz inmate. He wrote about this heroic act, verified by the man he saved, in a best-selling book. But its publication generated a heated debate. That's because Denis also claimed to have broken in to the Nazi concentration camp itself. Why would anyone do such a thing and was it even possible? Witness to Auschwitz examines the controversy surrounding this latest Holocaust account and asks why is it so important to know the truth?

Memory After Belsen: The Future of Holocaust Memory

Parallel Lines

This video is a feature-length documentary that explores the lives and memories of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. The film investigates the changes occurring with and the many dimensions of Holocaust memory through the generations – weaving together a visual tapestry of people whose family histories position them as stewards of Holocaust remembrance. It poses difficult questions about the transmission of the memory of the Holocaust through the generations, including how the survivor generation has impacted the 2nd generation and what is the memory work of ensuing generations.

Escape from a Nazi Death Camp

PBS

The Nazi death camp at Sobibor was created solely for the mass extermination of Jews. But on October 14, 1943 the inmates fought back, in the biggest and most successful prison outbreak of the Second World War. Of the 600 inmates present on the day of the escape, 300 escaped. Around 50 survived the war and of that 50, only a handful are still alive. This is their last chance to reveal the true story of their escape.

Student Workshop

USC SHOAH FOUNDATION INSTITUTE

This half-hour reality TV-style video illustrates how the participants grew, changed, and rethought their own closely held assumptions over the course of the filming project and the daylong workshop that brought it all together. The video weaves student video diaries with first-person, primary-source interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses. (25 minutes)

Deutsch Plus: Part 2

BBC Worldwide Learning

Deutsch Plus is a German language series for intermediate students. In part two, Romanian refugee Nicolai Antonescu starts his second day in a new job at D Plus in Cologne. Includes greetings, office conversations, coffee, ID card information, articles, and cafeteria exchanges. A BBC Production.

Touched by Auschwitz: Episode 1

BBC Worldwide Learning

The Touched by Auschwitz seriestells the extraordinary story of six Auschwitz survivors. Producer and director Laurence Rees filmed Auschwitz survivors, their friends, and their families in Jerusalem, Chicago, London, Bavaria, Krakow, and Tel Aviv. The interviews build a compelling portrait of the problems, challenges, and triumphs the survivors experienced since the war as a result of their time in the concentration camp, andattempt to answer one of the most profound questions of the Holocaust— what is the human legacy of the crime? In this episode, meet survivors Tadeusz Smreczynski, Freda Wineman, and Max Epstein. A BBC Production.

Children of the Holocaust

SND Films

Six remarkable stories of survival from eyewitnesses of Nazi atrocities during World War 2, brought to life through animation and a series of follow-up interviews with elderly survivors who recount their childhood experiences of Nazi atrocities and the impact on their lives. In thoughtful interviews, they discuss why Holocaust education is important to keep alive the memory of those who were murdered, and in order to stay vigilant so that the world may never see these horrific events repeated.